My 2012 Big Year

Saturday, 23 June 2012

Getting to Texas is Half the Fun

If you can call delay after delay fun. Probably the only people who get anything out of it are those, like me, who get to write about it afterwards, or in this case during. The original flight to San Antonio was at 9:55am. That meant I had to leave my hotel in Middleofnowhere,(Bluefield), WV at 5:30 am, meaning I was awake at 4:30am and hadn't gotten to sleep until close to midnight because the ball game I was at the previous night ran late due to a rain delay and extra innings. So, as Alan Luden might have said, "The Password is: DELAY."

The plane was in for maintenance and we were told that the flight would be taking off at 10am, 10:30am, 11:00am, 11:15am and finally we were boarding at 11:30 for a 45 minute "drive" out and back from the runway, as a caution light had gone off in the cockpit and apparently maintenance had somehow missed it when they were checking over the plane earlier. Another 15 or 20 minutes of awaiting the arrival of a jet-way to let us off the plane further aggravated those around me. I had my iPad out and was watching a movie.

Now it seems we are getting a new plane and it was scheduled to take off at 1:50pm but that birds has sung, so to speak. I've tried to spend the time productively Birding out the terminal windows. Here is my list:

1. House Sparrow

We are now boarding. With the hour time change I should have my luggage and be on the road and birding the highway down to the Texas/Mexico boarder by 4pm. With 5 hours driving time and perhaps two hours of birding along the way, I should still have a place to stay lined up by 10pm